Mega Man Creator Returns With Mighty No. 9

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I feel like Keiji Inafune is winking at us all. The Mega Man creator has turned to Kickstarter to fund a new PC game, a “classic Japanese side-scrolling action” game called Mighty No. 9 that’s not Mega Man, *wink*. According to the pitch: “You play as Beck, the 9th in a line of powerful robots, and the only one not infected by a mysterious computer virus that has caused mechanized creatures the world over to go berserk. Run, jump, blast, and transform your way through six stages (or more, via stretch goals) you can tackle in any order you choose, using weapons and abilities stolen from your enemies to take down your fellow Mighty Number robots and confront the final evil that threatens the planet!”
It’s one of those Kickstarters where hitting the F5 makes the number jump and jump and jump. By the time you read this it will probably be funded, and all we have to consider is how high it can reach. It’s interesting that the PC is the lead platform for this, because it’s not a game that’s had may PC iterations. In fact, the stretch goals mean there will be Mac and Linux (clearly driven by Steam) versions before there are PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo iterations. What a strange, topsy-turvy world we now live in.

69 Comments

” In fact, the stretch goals mean there will be Mac and Linux (clearly driven by Steam) versions before there are PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo iterations. What a strange, topsy-turvy world we now live in.”

Im going to get a lot of hate for this (specially in RPS), but, while i backed this the moment i saw it, i feel like console gamers should not have to wait for this to reach 2.5 mill in order to play on a console, due to the fact that consoles were where Inafune got his break.

While I get what you mean, there’s not much to say other than that I bet, even development aside, it’s probably both far more difficult to get console gamers to use kickstarter, as well as more difficult to get backers console versions of their games, there are probably exorbitant fees involved with getting people keys. Even that is forgetting the enormous dongle in the rear that certification is.

When you’re independent, PC just makes far, far more sense. And console users should be aware of that.

Megaman was originally a Nintendo game. Shouldn’t he be grateful to the company that gave him the start? In all seriousness, this is the kind of shitty me first and my platform only sentiment that lead to the exclusives that make everyone worse off.

Blatantly and frankly: NO, he should not. Nintendo isn’t a dear friend who he grew up with. It is a corporation that entered into a monetary agreement with him to make, sell, and profit from a product. When he first created Megaman, he did what would be most profitable to him and best for his brand. He is doing the same thing here.

Furthermore, and this is an important thing, the Console Market doesn’t want a new Sidescrolling Blue Robot Game. If they did, then the Megaman franchise would be going strong, and Mr. Inafune would still be happily making the games he wants to make at Capcom. But you can’t make Megaman just another Call of Duty knockoff, so they stupidly lose an entire audience because they can’t chase the videogaming dragon. And so he left Capcom to happily make the games he wants to make in a new company. And that is a good thing.

Bluestorm, I don’t know of console gamers want a new sidescrolling Megaman or not, but I do know it’s wise to know the difference between “this group of people doesn’t want this” and “a bunch of executives working for major publishers believes this group of people doesn’t want this”.

And when the publishers routinely talk about how games that can sell millions of copies were disappointments, it implies that they aren’t necessarily good at judging what will and won’t sell.

Not to mention that bigger publishers (including Capcom) get caught up in believing most/all of their games need to be multi-million sellers.

A third issue is that Inafune was supposedly the main champion for Mega Man at Capcom. When he left, there may simply not have been anyone with sufficient power pushing for a new Mega Man game. Capcom has a lot of IP. If an IP doesn’t have someone pushing for it, then it can easily be forgotten.

Makai: It just seems weird to complain about high console stretch goals because consoles was where he got his break and also go “oh and drop the Nintendo plox”. (It would seem less weird if, say, Playstations and Xboxes were around when they did Megaman.)

Other than that, yeah whatever. Would not mind if it was console first or console only or whatever. If it’s good I will get it and play it.

To be fair, Inafune seems to be taking the whole Kickstarter seriously. He says he’s trying to make an example for Japanese developers. For that to really work, he needs to avoid mistakes. That includes making promises that he cannot keep, like release dates and the like.

For that reason alone he might want to hold off on promising multiple console ports unless he was swimming in enough money to insure that he can get them made without issues.

Or not demanding at all, like Skullgirls which runs perfectly fine on my integrated Intel 3000 card and it even doesn’t kill my laptop for 5 minutes when I’m done with playing (which like 99% games from last 2-3 years do).

“Mighty No. 9 is an all-new Japanese side-scrolling action game that takes the best aspects of the 8- and 16-bit era classics you know and love, and transforms them with modern tech, fresh mechanics, and fan input into something fresh and amazing!”
“Modern Tech”
I think they’re planning on making this one pretty nice looking. Expect really cell-shaded graphics, a la Guilty Gear Xrd. If they aren’t doing something like that, then there’s no way they need that much money, barring skullgirls quality 2d animation on everything that moves.
Toasters won’t be able to run that.

There are 8 people on the team, not counting contract workers or consultants and a Spring 2015 release date. At the industry-average burn rate of $5K/person/month (this is not just the salary), they would need $800 000. Add consultants and QA, fees, and reward costs, and you get about the amount they asked for.

What you are suggesting here is pretty much what PC gamers have faced over the last decade or so. Only now are we seeing some real change. There’s a small difference I see between this however and what PC gamers have had to deal with.

Specifically, this game’s developers are being up front about how they plan to develop the game and clearly state the conditions under which they would take on the extra work and cost required to make ports.

This is something that PC gamers didn’t get when studios like Epic more or less jumped ship or when their favourite franchise stopped going forward and started going backwards so as to appeal to the LCD in terms of hardware and complexity.

In fact, quite the opposite was true. PC gamers were told in no uncertain terms that they weren’t a concern, that their money was less valuable than someone else’s, that they knew we were all thieving pirate scum deserving of our pariah status and that our passion, our hobby was doomed to a cold, lonely death. Again and again.

So, although I can understand your disappointment – and trust me, I know how you feel; any long-time PC gamers would – I think I’m perfectly justified in saying that you should sit back, relax and allow PC gamers this little victory.

PS. Instead of complaining about this, you should try and promote this kickstarter among console gamers so that we’ll all get to enjoy what I’m sure will be a wonderful game.

While I agree that it’s annoying, It’s not TOO expensive to get a middle-ground gaming PC these days… especially considering that the PS3 cost me 600 dollars, and the Xbox 360 cost me 400 dollars, and then Red Ring’d every year for the next 7 years, and they only covered the first 4 repairs, and I had to pay 100 dollars for every other one, meaning that I spent frigging 700 bucks on that damn system. Sure, it requires knowledge that I honestly want to not know to diagnose and fix PC problems, but when I have so much variety of great games to choose from, I think I still win.

I mean, a console would never have been able to make or publish Planescape: Torment. A console would never take a indie game about bureaucracy at a border checkpoint and make it a wonderful experience. A console would never take a great tactical RPG and turn it into Dragon Effect- OH SHIT, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT CONSOLES DO! It’s not the fault of CONSOLES, it’s the fault of business men. But business men control the console market, and Gamers control the PC gaming scene.

You know what is the best thing about this kickstarter? It is already founded and the $20 “get the game” tier is not limited which means I don´t have to search for my wallet in the middle of the night so get the last slot of the “discount” tier, but can pledge in the morning.

Megaman 4 cost me 60 dollars of Christmas Money, when I was still in school and it was an 8-bit game. Now 20 dollars will buy you Mighty No. 9. Even if you’re currently the age I was when I got Megaman 4, the cost is 1/3 of what I had to pay. You’re living in a golden age of good, cheap games. Enjoy it.

I’m totally cool with this. Might back later after work when i get a chance to see what the tiers are like. After neglecting the English-language PC market for so long, I’m happy to see some (big name) Japanese devs working on my platform of choice.

There are some weird limitations in their tiers. For example, for a digital copy of the manual, why get an English or a Japanese version? The cost to them just throwing you both is zero, including lost sale opportunity, since I can’t see any other way you’d (legitimately) get the other version.

(Compare: picking which of Steam/Windows/Linux/Mac, although the idea that people will buy the game multiple times to get it on multiple platforms is right up there with region locking. [Then again, people rebuy things “just to have them on Steam” as a convenience. {Then then again, Steam itself, and the Humble Store, have set a moderately firm trend of “you are buying (a licence for) the game, not it on one specific platform”. (I’m sure I had a point down here somewhere. </ramble>)}])

I completely agree with you, but think you missed something important. It’s an added layer of complexity to ensure that the right manuals go to the right people. Essentially, they created separate tiers within a tier. This means that whoever does customer service (probably the translation team if I had to guess) is making more work for themselves. This is why almost everyone who makes a manual just puts all the separate languages together. They could even just put a link to whatever page a certain language starts on in the pdf.

Oh lord my heart is bleeding. I might actually back this
I am most distressed however by the fact that the Kickstarter page is completely silent on the existence of a Dr. Wily stand-in. I demand a persistent mad scientist that can somehow build infinite waves of robots every 10 months or so, Inafune!

Scroll down to the “Contests” part of the Kickstarter page, which is followed by nine scientist and businessmen drawings, some of which look rather evil? No, the page doesn’t flat out confirm a not-Wily, but it seems to imply some evil figure will be present.

While I know this project doesn’t really need my money anymore, I’ve been pondering the funding of it anyway since I saw it. I’m really looking forward to a modern Mega-Man spiritual successor, but I also feel that if this game were to become successful and make a bunch of money, the next game in the series wouldn’t even be on PC and would probably be console-exclusive. Japanese developers just don’t seem to really take the PC seriously, and it’s interesting to see them coming to PC only when there is no other resort.

And on the other hand, if this game were to do well, could also prove that Japanese devs should be paying more attention to this platform…

Honestly, I think your latter argument is more on point here. In a small, subtle way, this is a victory of PC over console. It shows just how versatile, flexible, healthy, and rewarding the PC is as a platform right now. I’d expect it, alongside Project Phoenix, to really help open up Kickstarter to Japan, which, in turn, will help to open Japan up to PC development.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not expecting an over-night revolution. However, it is part of a bigger series of events, including Dark Souls and DS 2 coming to PC, and the similarity of the PS4 and XB1 to PC.

Don’t forget Capcom has been bringing quite a few of their games to the PC over the last few years, and Konami seems to be starting to bring there’s over as well, Sega’s been bringing the Sonic games to PC at the least, so in roads have begun.

I funded this. Want. Very much. What I’ve been hoping for though is a complete Mega Man collection on PC. Like this one link to amzn.to . It would seem to be such an easy and obvious steam thing. Charge 20 bucks for it and include mega man 1-10 and I’d be all over that shit. Hell charge thirty and I may seriously consider it. I don’t want to have to buy a wii or ps2 just for mega man. That’s cray-cray.

Mega Man 9 and 10 were pretty cool as retro throwbacks but I just don’t see what else they could do with the series other than wrap up some loose ends in the storyline (which would be nice but they’ll never wrap things up anyway). I’m glad this is a new IP that can offer new elements, which they may have been reluctant to do with a classic series people have certain expectations of. Hopefully they will keep the easy mode option of 10 since my dexterity isn’t what it used to be. I’m also glad they’re getting so much money. Sure, there are good indie side scrolling games that cost peanuts to develop but they don’t have the polish and finely honed gameplay that veterans like Inafune and his team can achieve.

“By the time you read this it will probably be funded”

It was funded before you posted of it so, yeah, that’s highly probable for most!

By the looks of it, the difference in money is the difference between a professional game, with professional production values, and an amateur game. Don’t get me wrong, amateur isn’t a slight on some of the great titles kickstarter has brought us, it just means that the devs have to make significant tradeoffs. Shadowrun looked great, and was fun in battles, but it lacked the content diversity and fully developed underlying systems. FTL does not look very good, but it’s really, really fun to play. Both of these games were success, added something new to gaming, and made far more than they asked for.

Bear in mind that they say in the pitch that $900k is the minimum they want before they start throwing their own money into the game. It does not actually cover the cost of development.

That is why the people who do think it is worth the money are funding it and not you.

If you aren’t just being a cranky pants though and are meaning that you don’t see how development of the game could cost $900,000, you should do up a business plan based on an equivocal design and see if you can pay for the development, art, music, marketing, testing, certification, ratings, porting, midget waiters for the fully catered lunches, and whatever else they are doing to develop the game to see if you can do it cheaper. If you succeed, you should let Keiji know as I’m sure he’d love to save costs while still meeting their target quality and milestones.

I’m starting to think that the real victors of the kickstarter era are 2 Player Productions. Two double fine games and now Mega err… Number 9? Someone should make a documentary about their rise to fame and fortune.